Pittsburgh Steelers running back Jonathan Dwyer said on Wednesday that fullback Will Johnson is playing “lights out” right now and I have felt the same way about the undrafted free agent. In addition to Johnson, the offensive line has also been playing lights out and I wanted to show some film of a play Sunday in the win over the New York Giants that illustrates both.

The animated gif below shows the first play following the interception by cornerback Ike Taylor. The Steelers are in 21 personnel with Johnson lined up strong-side.

At the snap Maurkice Pouncey explodes to his right to start turning out defensive tackle Rocky Bernard. This is a double team block along with Ramon Foster, but you can see that Pouncey really doesn\’t need much help here in turning Bernard out. Right tackle Mike Adams allows defensive end Justin Tuck to take himself out of the play and all he has to do is square up on him on the edge.

Weak-side linebacker Michael Boley has to stay in the outside lane created between the B-gap as that is his responsibility. On the other side you have Willie Colon winning low man against defensive tackle Chris Canty. Watch how effectively that Colon turns him. He manhandles him.

This leaves a nice open A-gap left that only has middle linebacker Mark Herzlich in it. Herzlich actually wins the low award when he takes on Johnson, but Johnson has the outside shoulder win here and is able to turn the inexperienced linebacker away from the hole.

The result of the block made by Johnson is a nice crease for Isaac Redman to get skinny in and the result is a 14 yard run right up the gut.

Will Johnson is another guy who really can be defined by Tomlin’s “Next Man Up” policy. David Johnson goes down in the preseason, and the UFA Will doesn’t even let anyone think about the Steelers looking for another full back. Played well in the preseason, and fantastic so far in the regular season. Great work by a young man taking advantage of his opportunity to make it in the NFL big time.